rita, zoë's hindi teacher, invited all her students to a shiva puja. because only zoë and mel committed to going, there was a spare seat in the car for me. now this sounded good, for it was a opportunity for a bit more adventure in our lives! however, i was not without caution, and was on the alert for any human sacrificing, since this was a shiva kind of thing. it's good to have zoë -- i can outrun her.
we woke at 5 in the morning and wandered through the dark with a pack of dogs to the yoga center. rita's husband om, who was nicknamed the sound of the universe, teaches yoga. when we strolled in, both rita and om were hastily getting their children ready; a two year old daughter and a three month old baby boy.
mel sat in the corner munching on two bananas, om set out two folding chairs and we sat down with mel. the two year old daughter was giving mel a 2 minute death stair non-stop, which she did many times that day, and the baby was sprawled on the bed beginning to cry a little. rita explained she had been up since 3 washing her kids, herself, and getting ready.
they began to finish and we both offered to help to speed up our departure but there was not much we could do. when om left the room to go put some bags in the car the daughter burst into tears having severe attachment to om, so she went with him. a few minutes later we joined them, mel carrying the baby and the rest of us with bags or flashlights.
the vehicle was a tiny, beat-up suzuki that rode about 4 inches off the ground. it had 5 seats and there were 7 of us, so it was tight to say the least. om struggled with the vehicle -- it took 4 tries to back out of the steep driveway, each time scraping the bottom of the car. the engine was loud but that was probably because the exhaust system had been ground off the bottom of the car from backing out each time.
finally everyone in the back seat got out and the car made it up the driveway. then we got back in but the car could not start going up the mountain side, om seemed to be really struggling to get it into first gear. we all got out again, om put a rock under the back tire and then managed to get the car rolling up the hill to a more level area. we all got in again and this time the car did not struggle to start rolling, though the engine roared to get started.
we went up and then all the way down the mountain into the valley. rita explained that om had not driven in a year and had forgotten a little. om, in the little english he had, said: "i am yoga teacher, not driver!" then he proceeded to laugh hysterically as the car flew around each corner a bit too fast.
we stopped at a gas station and om passed a 2 liter coca-cola bottle to the guy working the pump. he filled the bottle with bright orange gasoline, screwed the lid back on, and passed it back to om. the tank in the car was then filled half way. i asked what the coca-cola bottle was for, and rita explained that there were no gas stations out where we were going, it was just in case. this is yet another characteristic of india!
om passed the bottle of gas to me and told me to place it behind my seat in the sun, great. i vaguely remember being told in boyscouts that gasoline can easily eat through a plastic bottle. maybe that was true, maybe it was not. ironically om said at that moment: "today you experience real india and real indian food," then laughed hysterically again, a discomforting characteristic he has. he was right though.
we drove for 2 hours, slowly getting into more and more remote areas. at one point there was a bridge out. we drove across a 100 foot wide dry river bed, the car scraping along every inch of it. finally we got to a foot path on the side of the road, where we were dropped off and om parked the car.
there was no road to the village, we trekked about 1.5 kilometers across another dry riverbed and then straight up a big hill. we began to enter a village and i am sure we were being laughed at for our "out of place-ness."
finally we got to the om's parents house, where the puja was being held, and there were about 30 people. mel, zoë, and i found some plastic chairs and sat together chatting since no one else spoke english. mel and zoë attempted to communicate with the others in hindi with varying levels of success. chanting began in the house and tons of smoke began to come out the windows and roof. a small bonfire was lit in the living room where everybody was crowded (especially the men,) chanting and throwing things into the fire.
we stayed outside -- the smoke was unbearable -- and we occasionally poked our heads in. the 2 year old girl was throwing fits and crying off and on during the whole time we were there. i know you cannot expect much of a 2 year old but she was being ridiculous, crying and screaming purely for attention. she continued to throw fits non-stop, pouting, and rejecting any sort of comfort besides attention. finally rita took her to the side and slapped the child in the face several times. i'm sure this reinforced how much she likes her dad. i am not judging the parenting at all -- this is extremely common way of punishing children in india and i have seen it many times before.
i cannot deny that part of me felt like the child deserved it; she knew she was being bad and we put up with hours of it. however, most of me was shocked and appalled. in the end though, it worked, it stopped her poor behavior for the rest of the stay, though it did pick up again later. i will never, ever, strike my child no matter how bad they act.
the puja continued for about 2 hours and moved outside to in front of the shrine. several songs took place and more people appeared. by now we were probably up to 40 or 50. during the second and third song three people became possessed and began to twitch and thrash, wildly out of control, yelling. the point of the songs was to remove the evil from inside, an annual exorcism. i did not take video of it out of respect for the people. they thrashed for about a half hour as the priest tried to hold them and tell them to be at peace. the evil seemed to completely leave them once the songs ended.
after that, we had a gigantic lunch. we ate on the floor off of leaves. this is the first time status became clear. all the very rich men sat on one side, then us, then the very rich women, and then whoever came after that. a total of three lunches was served to about 70 people. i am not sure where they all came from. the food was excellent. i peaked into the kitchen and saw a giant 10 foot trench dug into the earth floor. it was like a bean suppah! a fire filled the entire trench and large pots lined the top of it.
after lunch we sat around stuffed and sleepy. we stayed for about another hour, then left around 2 after some chai. we had to walk about 3k to the car and the road was just as sketchy on the way back. the car seemed to struggle, but i was comfortable.
we stopped at a beautiful hindi temple. inside we went up to the shrine where a man painted a dot in the middle of our forehead and gave us water. i think you're suppose to drink the water, but zoë and i put it on our heads, not knowing what to do. we were then given puffed rice and sugar to eat. then we went to the next shrine upstairs and repeated the process.
after we did a photo-shoot outside the temple.
we drove another hour and stopped at om's aunt and uncle's. we had another chai and left after only twenty minutes or so.
the car began to really struggle as we went back up the mountain. by now it was dark and om seemed to be unable to shift the gears properly. i know very little about manual transmission, but i figured that om was having a hard time to get the clutch to work. after we got about halfway up the first pass, the clutch would grab no more. we stopped in the middle of a highway on the edge of mountain side figuring out what to do as massive busses blew past us. we had stopped in a blind corner and it was definitely not safe. we all flipped out when om turned off the lights, not sure why he did that, but then it was impossible to avoid a vehicle hitting us. om looked at me and asked if i had experience driving. i said no, but i do know when a car is not working, and it was not working at all.
finally we rolled back down the mountain, we made it back to the aunt and uncle's house (about 90% of the way) until we ran out of momentum. zoë, mel, and i got out and began to push the car the last quarter mile. at 9 in the evening we showed back up at the house of the now confused aunt and uncle.
the uncle's brother showed up and said something about being part of the police, never believe this when you hear it in india unless the man is in uniform. anyways, he began to ask us question after question as we tried to watch the australia vs. india cricket game and debated between getting a cab back or waiting for a mechanic. at one point he pulled out some hash from his pocket and pressed it in our face asking us over and over again to take it. i began to get pissed off and each "no" became harsher than the last until he started apologizing, thinking he had offended us, which he had. definitely not a policeman, or not a good one at least.
later, we got another room to sleep in away from this annoying man, while we waited 4 hours for the car to get fixed. we asked who he was, and got several answers including that he is a "taper" for the police, whatever that means, a rickshaw driver, and fucking mechanic who was sitting on his ass watching the cricket game. however, he did get us 3 mechanics at an ungodly hour.
at around 11 i went out to the car. the three mechanics were pulling it apart like mad, no wheels, hood open, yanking out hoses, tubes, and bits of metal left and right. scrap yards don't look this violent. i began to think we were going to get home in a day or two. i went back to bed and fell asleep.
at 1 in the morning i was woken up and told the car was fixed, and it was! a true testament to indian mechanics! we also found out that the car is lent to everyone who needs it, including as rita said: "a bhang man who takes drugs and then drives." all i know is that the clutch plates were replaced, though probably among other things.
om drove incredibly fast, shooting straight back and reaching home at 2 in the morning. the tires had no tred and i was afraid we were going to slide or roll off the mountain. it seemed like a sports car. we drove 70 kilometers an hour through a small town, which was kind of scary.
zoë and i beelined home ushered by a back of dogs happy to see us. i fell asleep with in 5 minutes of lying down.
we woke at 5 in the morning and wandered through the dark with a pack of dogs to the yoga center. rita's husband om, who was nicknamed the sound of the universe, teaches yoga. when we strolled in, both rita and om were hastily getting their children ready; a two year old daughter and a three month old baby boy.
mel sat in the corner munching on two bananas, om set out two folding chairs and we sat down with mel. the two year old daughter was giving mel a 2 minute death stair non-stop, which she did many times that day, and the baby was sprawled on the bed beginning to cry a little. rita explained she had been up since 3 washing her kids, herself, and getting ready.
they began to finish and we both offered to help to speed up our departure but there was not much we could do. when om left the room to go put some bags in the car the daughter burst into tears having severe attachment to om, so she went with him. a few minutes later we joined them, mel carrying the baby and the rest of us with bags or flashlights.
the vehicle was a tiny, beat-up suzuki that rode about 4 inches off the ground. it had 5 seats and there were 7 of us, so it was tight to say the least. om struggled with the vehicle -- it took 4 tries to back out of the steep driveway, each time scraping the bottom of the car. the engine was loud but that was probably because the exhaust system had been ground off the bottom of the car from backing out each time.
finally everyone in the back seat got out and the car made it up the driveway. then we got back in but the car could not start going up the mountain side, om seemed to be really struggling to get it into first gear. we all got out again, om put a rock under the back tire and then managed to get the car rolling up the hill to a more level area. we all got in again and this time the car did not struggle to start rolling, though the engine roared to get started.
we went up and then all the way down the mountain into the valley. rita explained that om had not driven in a year and had forgotten a little. om, in the little english he had, said: "i am yoga teacher, not driver!" then he proceeded to laugh hysterically as the car flew around each corner a bit too fast.
we stopped at a gas station and om passed a 2 liter coca-cola bottle to the guy working the pump. he filled the bottle with bright orange gasoline, screwed the lid back on, and passed it back to om. the tank in the car was then filled half way. i asked what the coca-cola bottle was for, and rita explained that there were no gas stations out where we were going, it was just in case. this is yet another characteristic of india!
om passed the bottle of gas to me and told me to place it behind my seat in the sun, great. i vaguely remember being told in boyscouts that gasoline can easily eat through a plastic bottle. maybe that was true, maybe it was not. ironically om said at that moment: "today you experience real india and real indian food," then laughed hysterically again, a discomforting characteristic he has. he was right though.
we drove for 2 hours, slowly getting into more and more remote areas. at one point there was a bridge out. we drove across a 100 foot wide dry river bed, the car scraping along every inch of it. finally we got to a foot path on the side of the road, where we were dropped off and om parked the car.
there was no road to the village, we trekked about 1.5 kilometers across another dry riverbed and then straight up a big hill. we began to enter a village and i am sure we were being laughed at for our "out of place-ness."
finally we got to the om's parents house, where the puja was being held, and there were about 30 people. mel, zoë, and i found some plastic chairs and sat together chatting since no one else spoke english. mel and zoë attempted to communicate with the others in hindi with varying levels of success. chanting began in the house and tons of smoke began to come out the windows and roof. a small bonfire was lit in the living room where everybody was crowded (especially the men,) chanting and throwing things into the fire.
we stayed outside -- the smoke was unbearable -- and we occasionally poked our heads in. the 2 year old girl was throwing fits and crying off and on during the whole time we were there. i know you cannot expect much of a 2 year old but she was being ridiculous, crying and screaming purely for attention. she continued to throw fits non-stop, pouting, and rejecting any sort of comfort besides attention. finally rita took her to the side and slapped the child in the face several times. i'm sure this reinforced how much she likes her dad. i am not judging the parenting at all -- this is extremely common way of punishing children in india and i have seen it many times before.
i cannot deny that part of me felt like the child deserved it; she knew she was being bad and we put up with hours of it. however, most of me was shocked and appalled. in the end though, it worked, it stopped her poor behavior for the rest of the stay, though it did pick up again later. i will never, ever, strike my child no matter how bad they act.
the puja continued for about 2 hours and moved outside to in front of the shrine. several songs took place and more people appeared. by now we were probably up to 40 or 50. during the second and third song three people became possessed and began to twitch and thrash, wildly out of control, yelling. the point of the songs was to remove the evil from inside, an annual exorcism. i did not take video of it out of respect for the people. they thrashed for about a half hour as the priest tried to hold them and tell them to be at peace. the evil seemed to completely leave them once the songs ended.
after that, we had a gigantic lunch. we ate on the floor off of leaves. this is the first time status became clear. all the very rich men sat on one side, then us, then the very rich women, and then whoever came after that. a total of three lunches was served to about 70 people. i am not sure where they all came from. the food was excellent. i peaked into the kitchen and saw a giant 10 foot trench dug into the earth floor. it was like a bean suppah! a fire filled the entire trench and large pots lined the top of it.
after lunch we sat around stuffed and sleepy. we stayed for about another hour, then left around 2 after some chai. we had to walk about 3k to the car and the road was just as sketchy on the way back. the car seemed to struggle, but i was comfortable.
we stopped at a beautiful hindi temple. inside we went up to the shrine where a man painted a dot in the middle of our forehead and gave us water. i think you're suppose to drink the water, but zoë and i put it on our heads, not knowing what to do. we were then given puffed rice and sugar to eat. then we went to the next shrine upstairs and repeated the process.
after we did a photo-shoot outside the temple.
we drove another hour and stopped at om's aunt and uncle's. we had another chai and left after only twenty minutes or so.
the car began to really struggle as we went back up the mountain. by now it was dark and om seemed to be unable to shift the gears properly. i know very little about manual transmission, but i figured that om was having a hard time to get the clutch to work. after we got about halfway up the first pass, the clutch would grab no more. we stopped in the middle of a highway on the edge of mountain side figuring out what to do as massive busses blew past us. we had stopped in a blind corner and it was definitely not safe. we all flipped out when om turned off the lights, not sure why he did that, but then it was impossible to avoid a vehicle hitting us. om looked at me and asked if i had experience driving. i said no, but i do know when a car is not working, and it was not working at all.
finally we rolled back down the mountain, we made it back to the aunt and uncle's house (about 90% of the way) until we ran out of momentum. zoë, mel, and i got out and began to push the car the last quarter mile. at 9 in the evening we showed back up at the house of the now confused aunt and uncle.
the uncle's brother showed up and said something about being part of the police, never believe this when you hear it in india unless the man is in uniform. anyways, he began to ask us question after question as we tried to watch the australia vs. india cricket game and debated between getting a cab back or waiting for a mechanic. at one point he pulled out some hash from his pocket and pressed it in our face asking us over and over again to take it. i began to get pissed off and each "no" became harsher than the last until he started apologizing, thinking he had offended us, which he had. definitely not a policeman, or not a good one at least.
later, we got another room to sleep in away from this annoying man, while we waited 4 hours for the car to get fixed. we asked who he was, and got several answers including that he is a "taper" for the police, whatever that means, a rickshaw driver, and fucking mechanic who was sitting on his ass watching the cricket game. however, he did get us 3 mechanics at an ungodly hour.
at around 11 i went out to the car. the three mechanics were pulling it apart like mad, no wheels, hood open, yanking out hoses, tubes, and bits of metal left and right. scrap yards don't look this violent. i began to think we were going to get home in a day or two. i went back to bed and fell asleep.
at 1 in the morning i was woken up and told the car was fixed, and it was! a true testament to indian mechanics! we also found out that the car is lent to everyone who needs it, including as rita said: "a bhang man who takes drugs and then drives." all i know is that the clutch plates were replaced, though probably among other things.
om drove incredibly fast, shooting straight back and reaching home at 2 in the morning. the tires had no tred and i was afraid we were going to slide or roll off the mountain. it seemed like a sports car. we drove 70 kilometers an hour through a small town, which was kind of scary.
zoë and i beelined home ushered by a back of dogs happy to see us. i fell asleep with in 5 minutes of lying down.
i still can't get over how amazing this story is. i think it's going to need a whole separate chapter in your book, max. i am amazed at all you're experiencing and learning about -- and excited that you guys might learn a little mandarin, too!
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